Starring: Pawan Kalyan, Bhumika Chawla, Vijayakumar, Sivaji, Ali, Nasser, Rajan P Dev, Mumtaj
Directed by: SJ Suryah
Released on: 27th April, 2001
Story:
How does destiny unite Siddhu Siddhartha Roy (Pawan Kalyan) and Madhumathi (Bhumika Chawla), who belong to different places, cultures and are miles apart from each other forms the story. It is a remake of Tamil film Kushi by the same director.
Performances:
Kushi is a turning point for Pawan Kalyan in many ways. Despite some of his earlier movies and performances earning him a lot of appreciation and success, Kushi was the game- changer. He got a full-fledged role to unleash all his talents. His entire look, costumes, style, dialogue delivery, mannerisms, dances were all unique and trendsetting at the time. Those mannerisms and dialogues are very popular even today.
Bhumika Chawla got to perform in a very important and well written role and she did extremely well in this film. Vijayakumar, Nasser, Ali, Sivaji, Mumtaj, Rajan P Dev are among the other notable characters in the film and all of them make their presence felt but the movie is totally focused only on the lead pair and does not allow others to score much.
Nuvvu Gudumba Satthi kavocchu thokkala Satthi kavocchu, but I don’t care because I am Siddhu.. Siddhartha Roy.
Technicalities:
PC Sreeram’s camerawork is an added advantage for the film. Both Kolkata and Hyderabad are captured well along with beautiful foreign locales in the melody songs. Fight sequences are designed by Pawan Kalyan himself and they are creative and entertaining. Editing work is suitable for the screenplay. Manisharma’s music is a pillar to the film. Three fast beat songs and three melodies constitute the album.
All songs are beautifully composed and picturised and will remain as an evergreen album forever. ‘Ammaye Sannaga’, ‘Cheliya Cheliya’ and ‘Aadavari Matalaku Ardhale Verule’ are some of the very popular and loved songs. ‘Ye Mera Jahan’, the intro song for Pawan Kalyan in the movie is a favourite for fans despite the entire lyrics being in Hindi. Manisharma’s background score is also terrific in this film. Production values by AM Ratnam are superb and movie has a rich feel. Rajendra Kumar’s dialogues are good. Though there are not many punches, they are entertaining.
Screenplay-Direction:
This is SJ Suryah’s third film as director, after making two films in Tamil one of them being the original version of Kushi. What made the major difference between tamil and telugu versions of Kushi is Pawan Kalyan’s performance. His entertaining mannerisms and variations made this film a one-man show. SJ Suryah succeeded in understanding the capabilities and strengths of Pawan Kalyan and extracted them well. With a thin storyline, he has worked on a fresh and entertaining screenplay. He shows us how ego plays spoilsport in two people expressing their feelings. This ego-clash idea has been used in hundreds of South Indian films post Kushi.
Prema Doma ani elanti thokkalo commitments pettukokudadu…ippudu nannu choodu entha Santoshanga Unnano…entha ullasanga unnao
SJ Suryah has done a very good job with the characterisation of male and female lead roles. He exhibited his unique style of handling love stories through scenes like Bhumika misunderstanding Pawan Kalyan in several instances in the first half, Pawan Kalyan caught by Bhumika while staring at her waist and climax sequence where both search frantically for each other in the railway station.
BO Analysis:
Kushi marked 6th straight hit in Pawan Kalyan’s career and was an All time biggest blockbuster movie till that date. It is the 1st 20Cr Film for Pawan Kalyan and created All time record in Nizam territory. It was all time #2 at that time. Telugu States share was close to 19.5 Cr with Nizam Share being an all time record of 7.5 Cr.
Kushi created several unique records during its run. One such record is all time gross record in Raj theatre of vijayawada where it collected 1.05 Cr.
Conclusion:
Several rom-coms made in Telugu over the past 2 decades have been inspired by Kushi in some or the other way. Such was the impact of Kushi on the way love stories were made in Tollywood. Kushi was a huge success commercially and is one of the biggest hits in Pawan Kalyan’s career. It would definitely rank among Top 3 favourite films in every Pawan Kalyan fan’s list. This film helped Pawan Kalyan a lot in building his own individual fan base after having started in the industry as Mega Star’s brother.
Recalling this evergreen love story as we approach it’s 19th anniversary !
Movie available for streaming on:
Amazon Prime (India)
Youtube
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